How Schools Manage Sex Education Politics Still Plays A Role In What The Students Learn

November 24, 1985|By Moira Bailey of The Sentinel Staff

Raymond Bassett, vice chairman of the Orange County School Board, has ridden the sex education roller coaster for about 20 years, with his hands tied. He said the knot won't be loosened until parents who want their children to learn more about sex in schools talk louder than those who don't.

''If we made the announcement tomorrow that we were thinking of introducing a sex education program . . . we would probably have the hall filled with protesters,'' said Bassett, who has been a board member for 15 of the past 20 years. He recalled a wave of dissent from a ''very vocal minority'' of parents and pastors when the issue was raised about 15 years ago.

''I've probably, in the last two or three years, had maybe a couple of dozen people say we need sex education in the schools,'' Bassett added. ''I feel almost derelict in not having it.''

Bassett's belief that only a minority of parents oppose sex education is supported by a Louis Harris survey whose results were released this month. The survey, conducted for Planned Parenthood, found that 85 percent of American adults agree that sex education should be taught in public schools.

Sixty-seven percent said they want schools to create some links with family planning clinics so that students can learn about contraceptives. The Harris poll, a random telephone survey of 2,510 households, also found that only 33 percent of adults discuss birth control with their children.

Sex education per se is not officially incorporated into the curriculums of schools in Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Brevard, Volusia or Lake counties, according to those who oversee health education for the counties.

''Sex education is left as a district option, and there's where your local rule and local control comes in,'' said Mae Waters, health education consultant for the state Department of Education in Tallahassee.

Outside the classroom, however, there is little control over the information teen-agers receive about sex. Sex is on television, at the movies and in the bookstore. Newspapers, magazines and newscasts are filled with reports about teen-age pregnancy, child abuse, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases.

The fact that sex education isn't official in Central Florida doesn't mean that schools shy away from the subject altogether. Elementary and junior high school teachers follow county guidelines that generally approve the teaching of topics such as puberty, the menstrual cycle and the human reproductive system. Some schools broach the subject of venereal disease at the junior high level.

Two years ago, the Florida Legislature passed a law requiring that ''life management skills'' be taught to high school students, usually in home economics or health classes. The law does not require that sex education be part of that instruction. A McGraw-Hill textbook used in Orange County to meet the ''life management'' requirement, Health and Safety For You, includes sections on human reproduction as well as drug abuse, communicable diseases and environment and heredity. Contraception is defined, but contraceptive methods are not explained. A single reference to sexual intercourse is made in the section on communicable diseases.

Some teachers get more specific than the textbooks in discussing human reproduction -- usually with the consent of their principal. Some bring in speakers recommended by the school system.

Because sex education is not required, materials and subject matter vary from school to school. That has led some parents to demand a more uniform and comprehensive approach to the teaching of human sexuality. One of the louder calls for sex education in Central Florida schools came in 1980, when Lake County voters approved of sex education in a special straw ballot.

Despite lengthy debate and vocal opposition from some parents and clergymen, a committee of parents and educators was appointed to establish a program now implemented in kindergarten through grade 7. The program has more to do with growth and development than with sex. It incorporates 21 moral values, including self-discipline and honesty.

Committee member Beverly Ohnstead said a two-week course for eighth- graders is being planned. It will cover ''all the so-called controversial subjects'' including contraception and abortion, Ohnstead said, and will ''give them definitions . . . I have never seen anything wrong with the truth.''

Many teen-agers think they already know the truth about sex, but what they're really doing is exchanging misinformation, said Sally David, coordinator of the First Infant Readiness Support Training program in Osceola County.

David, who counsels pregnant teen-agers, said they still believe a myriad of sexual myths: that Coca-Cola acts as a contraceptive when used as an after- sex douche, for instance, or that you can't get pregnant if you have intercourse while standing up.